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MICHAEL CROWLEY, TIME MAGAZINE
| 05/17/12 8:17 AM EDT

BREAKING THIS MORNING: “Romney Raises $40.1 Million in April, Nearly Matching Obama,” by NYT’s Michael Shear: “Mr. Romney and the R.N.C. raised $40.1 million in April, just shy of the $43.6 million that Mr. Obama and the Democratic National Committee raised for the month.

The contributions on behalf of Mr. Romney represent a huge jump over the $12.6 million that his campaign raised in March. The increase was made possible by donors coalescing around Mr. Romney as the nominee and the larger donations that can be directed to the party, campaign officials said….

Aides to Mr. Romney noted that the total might have been even higher if the joint fund-raising effort — known as the ‘Victory’ campaign — had begun sooner. The campaign and the R.N.C. announced they were joining forces on April 4 but did not hold the first combined event until April 14, nearly halfway through the month.”

TAKING OFF THE GLOVES: NYT’s Zeleny and Rutenberg: “G.O.P. ‘Super PAC’ Weighs Hard-Line Attack on Obama”: “A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the ‘super PAC’ era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away from.

Timed to upend the Democratic National Convention in September, the plan would ‘do exactly what John McCain would not let us do,’ the strategists wrote.

The plan, which is awaiting approval, calls for running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons made him a highly charged figure in the 2008 campaign.

‘’The world is about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way,’ says the proposal, which was overseen by Fred Davis and commissioned by Joe Ricketts, the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade. Mr. Ricketts is increasingly putting his fortune to work in conservative politics.

“The $10 million plan, one of several being studied by Mr. Ricketts, includes preparations for how to respond to the charges of race-baiting it envisions if it highlights Mr. Obama’s former ties to Mr. Wright, who espouses what is known as ‘black liberation theology.’”

“The group suggested hiring as a spokesman an ‘extremely literate conservative African-American’ who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a ‘metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.’” http://tinyurl.com/c6lt8oz

TIME COVER: “Bibi’s Choice,” by Managing Editor Rick Stengel. Exclusive interview with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, who calls Iran’s leaders “the greatest threat not just to Israel and the Middle East but to civilization. You don’t know how they will behave.”

EXCERPTS (AND NOT JUST BECAUSE HE’S THE BOSS!):

“After a political thunderstroke on May 8 in which he created a center-right coalition with the rival Kadima party, giving him an enormous legislative majority, Netanyahu is poised to become the longest-serving Israeli Prime Minister since David Ben-Gurion, the founding father of Israel. He has no national rival. His approval rating, roughly 50%, is at an all-time high. At a moment when incumbents around the world are being shunted aside, he is triumphant. With his bullet-proof majority, he has a chance to turn himself into the historic figure he has always yearned to be. He has become, as some commentators have dubbed him, the King of Israel.”

“But to be a historic figure, one must make history. Now we will find out what the king really believes. Is he a statesman or a pol, a builder or a general, the Israeli leader who can finally make peace with the Palestinians or the one who launches a potentially disastrous unilateral attack on Iran?” “Can he keep Israel a distinctive Jewish state and preserve It as a democratic one? As a historian of the Zionist movement, Bibi knows these choices ­better than anyone else. As a soldier, he also understands the dark history that lies behind the creation of Israel. The question is whether he is a prisoner of that history or can write a new narrative….

“On the afternoon after we talked in Caesarea, I meet Bibi at his official residence in Jerusalem. The White House this isn’t. It’s an unmemorable modern building in a busy part of the city. Inside, one walks along paths that have not been swept, past unfinished construction and gardens that look untended. We sit in the courtyard outside his study, which has a naked concrete floor, some rickety chairs and an old couch. When Bibi signals that he’s hot, a worker silently rolls out a creaky shoulder-height rotating fan that she places right behind his head. It is the opposite of formal….

“In the end, Bibi would like to be a hero, but he will not be one at the expense of Israel’s security. He wants to be a defining figure in Israeli history and a significant player on the world stage, but he will not risk what he sees as Israel’s safety to be one. His ambition and now his security as Prime Minister, though, may let him take that risk. Of the Palestinians, he says, ‘If they figure it out, they will never have a better partner than me. I can make it happen and make it stick.’”

--On Mitt Romney, with whom he worked at Boston Consulting Group: “We did not know each other that well. He was the whiz kid. I was just in the back of the room.” Netanyahu tells Stengel he has seen Romney only a handful of times over the years and only once this year. They spoke for 10 minutes in March during his visit to Washington, mainly about Iran.

MARK HALPERIN’S “Between the Lines” on Obama’s new gay marriage position: Both risk and opportunity accompany President Barack Obama’s same-sex-marriage endorsement, but neither will come close to trumping the economy as the decisive issue in November... The greatest indication that public opinion on same-sex marriage has shifted over the past few years: almost no prominent GOP elected officials raised the issue after the day of the endorsement; party leaders, almost to a person, changed the topic to the economy when asked about Obama’s now evolved stance ... Rest assured, they will quietly communicate Obama’s position to targeted voters via religious organizations and mail as the election nears ... And if Obama loses narrowly, some of his supporters are sure to look back and wonder if publicly backing gay marriage cost him his job.

TIME EXCLUSIVE: Taliban Members Talk To TIME About Captured U.S. Soldier Bowe Bergdahl. TIME’s release:

“Three years after his capture, 26 year-old Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl remains America's only prisoner of war in Afghanistan. Last week his family broke their silence about failed negotiations between the U.S. and Taliban for a prisoner exchange. TIME now reveals a number of new details about those talks through interviews with both senior Taliban commanders and Obama Administration officials.”

“A Taliban leader tells TIME: ‘We told them we are willing to announce a cease-fire, but you should start pulling out all foreign forces and tell the world that invading Afghanistan and removing the Taliban from power was your mistake, but they did not agree. Thus the talks failed.’”

“Though American officials insist it was never a direct exchange, a senior Administration official tells TIME: ‘The Taliban refused to agree to the terms we require for a transfer, so they walked away. This proposal ... is still very much on the table.’”

WHAT JIMMY KIMMEL DIDN’T SAY at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, on the advice of ABC’s Jake Tapper: “Newt Gingrich’s campaign is so dead Mitt Romney wants to baptize it and Rick Santorum wants to put it in a jar and show it to his kids.” via Romenesko: http://bit.ly/KmCV0T

EXCLUSIVE -- Committee for Our Children’s Future, a 501(c)(4) backing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, goes up with a $1.6 million TV buy to “highlight Governor Christie and bipartisan reformers’ efforts to strengthen the economy, improve education and cut income taxes in New Jersey.” The ad, “Direction,” will air for the next three weeks in the Philadelphia and New York markets, and on New Jersey statewide cable stations. Watch the ad: http://youtu.be/lqXeQuLDEJw (Big hat tip: ABC’s Jon Karl, yesterday’s celebrity Playbooker.)

GAME PLANNING -- Republicans and Democrats plan for the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the health care reform law.

--POLITICO’s Jake Sherman and Jennifer Haberkorn on the GOP: “If the law is upheld, [House] Republicans will take to the floor to tear out its most controversial pieces, such as the individual mandate and requirements that employers provide insurance or face fines. If the law is partially or fully overturned they’ll draw up bills to keep the popular, consumer-friendly portions in place — like allowing adult children to remain on parents’ health care plans until age 26, and forcing insurance companies to provide coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Ripping these provisions from law is too politically risky, Republicans say.” http://bit.ly/KBbz9N

--BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith on Democrats: “The strategy focuses on what the memo from an official at the group Health Care for America Now describes as ‘’real people' stories,’ and the memo instructs allies that ‘people with stories and other speakers need to be recruited, trained and prepared to respond within 24 hours by the end of May.’ … ‘The best way to demonstrate public outrage or public celebration about the decision is to stage an event that shows average people actually responding to the news. We can do this by organizing events as quickly after the announcement of the decision as possible while the media window is still open--ideally, within 12-24 hours,’ the memo says.” http://bit.ly/L8TKev

TOP TALKER -- New Yorker’s “Rational Irrationality” blog, “Facebook: The Ultimate Dot-Com,” by John Cassidy: “Back in the late nineties, I used to read a lot of S-1s—official investment prospectuses produced by companies about to issue public shares for the first time. Delving into Facebook’sS-1, which it has amended repeatedly since February, when it put out an initial version, felt like old times. The numbers were different (by an order of magnitude) from those that the original dot-coms used to put out, but the basic story was the same one that had led to all those bad investments and broken dreams: a Web site expanding this fast, with this many eyeballs focussed upon it, has simply got to be worth a lot of money. …

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it close over fifty dollars, which would value Facebook at more than a hundred and twenty-five billion dollars. For such a figure to make sense, given the risks attached to the technology industry, you have to assume that, within a few years, Facebook will be making not a billion dollars a year in profit but five billion dollars, or ten billion dollars, or even more. … In purchasing its stock, as with buying the original dot-com stocks, investors will be laying out their cash primarily on the basis of hope and optimism rather than a clearly defined and firmly established business plan.”http://nyr.kr/Jgt6oQ

TREASURY/ FED (AND CHICAGO/BOSTON!) MUST-READ: --WSJ’S Gabriele Steinhauser, “Experts Try to Chart Path for Exit From Currency”: “Returning to a national currency after more than a decade of using the euro and having its money managed by the European Central Bank would catapult Greece into a financial, legal and political no man's land.”

“Countries have defaulted, devalued, or even withdrawn from a broader monetary union in the past. But none has done it all at once—and certainly not an economy so deeply integrated into global financial markets.”

“Greece would have to remake its monetary system and rebuild its economy after a likely sharp devaluation that would have delivered a severe confidence shock to the population, undermined its banks and triggered likely defaults on debts to foreigners. “

“The consequences of an exit from the euro for Greece and the rest of Europe would likely be so tumultuous that policy makers have been reluctant even to speculate on how it could work. And even though the taboo of mentioning a euro exit has fallen away in recent months, going back to the drachma would likely be messy, with many steps having to be improvised overnight.” http://tinyurl.com/7el7u52

CHANGING AMERICA -- NYT’s Sabrina Tavernese: “Whites Account for Half of Births in U.S.”: “After years of speculation, estimates and projections, the Census Bureau has made it official: White births are no longer a majority in the United States.”

“Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6 percent of all births in the 12-month period that ended last July, according to Census Bureau data made public on Thursday, while minorities — including Hispanics, blacks, Asians and those of mixed race — reached 50.4 percent, representing a majority for the first time in the country’s history….”

“While over all, whites will remain a majority for some time, the fact that a younger generation is being born in which minorities are the majority has broad implications for the country’s economy, its political life and its identity. “This is an important tipping point,” said William H. Frey, the senior demographer at the Brookings Institution…” http://tinyurl.com/77ncz9a

SENS. SCHUMER AND CASEY will go after Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s profits. -- Forthcoming release: The pair “will hold a news conference TODAY, May 17, 2012 at 11 am to unveil a comprehensive plan to respond to Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s scheme to renounce his U.S. citizenship in order to dodge taxes on profits he is expected to collect when the social-networking company goes public. … The senators will call Saverin’s move an outrage and describe a plan to re-impose taxes on expatriates like Saverin even after they flee the United States and take up residence in a foreign country. Their plan would also bar individuals like Saverin from ever reentering the country.” (hat tip: Mike Allen, reporting even while fishin’)

$230 MILLION -- How much Mitt Romney is worth, according to a forthcoming Forbes story by Edwin Durgy: “[T]here’s no denying that in terms of total dollars a President Romney would be the wealthiest White House occupant ever, and would be even wealthier had he not set aside a trust, now worth $100 million, for his 5 boys. … The core basis for our valuation comes from Romney himself – specifically, the U.S. Office of Government Ethics disclosure forms, which he filed in August 2007 and August 2011, plus discussions with high-level Romney officials familiar with specific changes to his holdings since that last report. … Supplemented by a dozen interviews – from local real estate experts to private equity partners – we get a detailed look at the current state of Mitt’s money … split between 9 different asset classes.” Preview online now: http://onforb.es/JUBdWS

SENATE SHUFFLE -- “Democrats’ Odds of Retaining Senate Improve,” by FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver: “Republicans are most likely to gain seats on balance because Democrats have considerably more incumbents up for re-election, the question of whether the Republicans will win enough to gain control now appears to be closer to a tossup.”

BEYOND THE BELTWAY -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s “The Wisconsin Voter” blog, “Scott Walker carves out a lead,” by Craig Gilbert: “A Marquette Law School poll released Wednesday showed [Republican Scott] Walker leading [Democrat Tom] Barrett 50% to 44% among likely voters, and that comes on the heels of a survey released a day earlier by Public Policy Polling in which the governor led the mayor 50% to 45%. … There are signs Walker is benefiting from an enthusiasm gap. … 91% of Republicans said they were absolutely certain to vote in the June recall election, compared to 83% of Democrats. … Barrett’s positive rating has risen slightly from 34% in January to 37% in May, but his negative rating has shot up from 27% to 45%.” http://bit.ly/KnKnbV

METRO SECTION -- REMEMBERING CHUCK BROWN -- WashPost A1, “’Chuck Brown Was Washington,’” by Chris Richards: “Known as the ‘Godfather of Go-Go,’ the performer, singer, guitarist and songwriter developed his commanding brand of funk in the mid-1970s to compete with the dominance of disco. Like a DJ blending records, Mr. Brown used nonstop percussion to stitch songs together and keep the crowd on the dance floor, resulting in marathon performances that went deep into the night. Mr. Brown said the style got its name because ‘the music just goes and goes.’” http://wapo.st/KhjFzM

--TRENDING -- “chuck brown” is Google’s #1 hot search.

HAPPENING TODAY -- N.Y. Times columnist Nick Kristof hosts a Google+ hangout with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice at 2:30 p.m. The event is the first in a series planned by the opinion section. http://bit.ly/JQ30Xg

** A message from America’s Health Insurance Plans: In the 1990s, Washington state tried to implement market reforms without a mandate. Although the law was intended to cover more people, the number of uninsured rose nearly 30% by 2000. Learn more about The Link between mandates and market reforms at http://bit.ly/thelinkahip**

VIRAL VIDEO -- James Carville and Mary Matalin come out for the “Cocktail Party” in a commercial for Maker’s Mark.http://youtu.be/LQQ5xayMWiQ

OBAMA CAMPAIGN DAY: Obama for America launches Veterans & Military Families for Obama today with a field outreach effort in key states with the centerpiece in-state event taking place in Norfolk, Virginia. Additionally, events including phone banks, press conferences and house parties will kick off the program in 16 states including: Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, North Carolina, New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Colorado. Surrogates involved include Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, Lt. Governor Anthony Brown, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, and OFA National Veterans & Military Families Outreach Director Rob Diamond.

--A 12:30 PM ET Obama press conference call on the President's strength and decisiveness as Commander-in Chief and his strong record of accomplishment on behalf of veterans. This contrasts with Governor Romney’s plan to take America backwards with the very budget he supports that includes deep domestic spending cuts that – if applied across the board – would cut veterans’ spending by $11 billion a year.

CAPITOL INTRIGUE – Who’s Burglarizing House Offices?? -- National Journal’s Julia Edwards: “Puzzling break-ins over the last month at the offices of at least three House members and several committees have U.S. Capitol Police gumshoes working to find a pattern and the culprits, with missing items ranging from cash and expensive computer equipment to autographed baseballs and alcohol.”

“In at least four of the cases, thieves broke into the offices at night when doors were locked, leading some staffers to believe they were victims of an inside job.”

“’The evidence points to someone with access to my office, and other offices in the Capitol complex, as the perpetrator,’” freshman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., surmised in a letter to the House’s Office of the Chief Administrative Officer.”

“Other offices hit—many of which handle information dealing with issues of national security, though nothing of a sensitive nature was reportedly taken—include those of Reps. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and Jon Runyan, R-N.J.; the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security; and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.” http://tinyurl.com/7jgkawe

POLICY BRIEF: Ascend director (and new Aspen Institute VP!) Anne Mosle writes for HuffPo about graduation, single moms and the “two generation” approach to fighting poverty: “Being part of a two-generation approach meant that the mothers at Misericordia University and CareerAdvance™ were able to concentrate on their learning and skill development, and attend classes knowing that their children were in safe, quality early learning programs. These families also had access to critical economic supports that minimized the paycheck-to-paycheck struggles and logistical chaos that can plague low-income parents' lives. Whether it's the Earned Income Tax Credit, student financial aid, or health insurance, these kinds of supports provide stability that parents can build upon.”

“These moms also had the chance to develop connections and support systems -- social capital -- that many of us take for granted. While these young women relied on those closest to them -- families, friends, faith organizations -- to give them positive reinforcement and much-needed help with children or bills, through two-generation programs they made lifelong connections with fellow students, advisors, career coaches, and teachers, all of whom may be crucial links to new jobs, and a more vibrant economic and community life.” http://tinyurl.com/cj9ngpe

TWEET OF THE NIGHT -- @HunstmanAbby: Trying to convince dad @JonHuntsman to run for mayor of NYC. Thoughts? #whynot?

COUNTERINTUITION -- A Hill-Dem-turned-lawyer emails: “I’m becoming more convinced that Super PACs, if we can just get some more disclosure, might end up a tool for good government. The winner of Tuesday’s Nebraska GOP primary was in single digits and unable to get her message out and had only $200k raised just a few weeks ago. A Super PAC comes in and … boom … she might be the next US Senator from Nebraska.

“I realized, showing up to two fundraising breakfasts last week, that Congress is about raising money full time and making policy part time. Super PACs have the potential to liberate members from fundraising and return Congress to an actual legislative body. The PACs are so narrow in their views that they enable candidates to explore heterodoxy on issues the PACs don’t care about while also providing necessary VC funds to people who have attractive messages but no base of rich friends. I wonder if we’ve been too quick to condemn these things. “

TECHWATCH -- Wired’s “Epicenter” blog, “Google Revamps Search With Massive ‘Real-World’ Map of Things,” by Ryan Singel: “[U]sers in the U.S. will soon begin to see new search results starting Wednesday, where Google will display a widget of information about a topic or thing, instead of just a list of links. It’s called the Google Knowledge Graph, which the company says includes some 500 million persons, places and things — and their billions of relationships to one another. … The modules will show up in the right-hand side of the screen, where ads are typically shown now.” http://bit.ly/IZID7u

MEDIAWATCH -- Capital New York, “‘The New Republic’ plans to establish a New York office,” by Joe Pompeo: “The latest TNR New York hub will have both editorial and business-side staffers, a spokeswoman told Capital. But the magazine's main headquarters will remain in Washington, D.C.” http://bit.ly/IYFqoG

SPORTS BLINK --WSJ’s Jason Gay on the NBA playoff attire: “Playoff T-shirts are an upgrade from the usual sartorial disaster. And they look pretty great on TV. The Smurf-y blue in Oklahoma City has been the best; the white T-shirt ‘White-Outs’ for Miami Heat and Phoenix Coyote games is all right, too, even if it gives an arena a vague waiting-room-in-the-afterlife feel.” http://tinyurl.com/cqpdawx

** A message from America’s Health Insurance Plans: In the 1990s, Washington state tried to implement market reforms without a mandate. Although the law was intended to cover more people, the number of uninsured rose nearly 30% by 2000.

Independent experts, policymakers and elected officials have all recognized the inextricable link between market reforms like guarantee issue and community rating and universal coverage. Studies from eight states that enacted various forms of guarantee issue and community rating in the 1990s all show what happens when these market reforms aren’t linked to a mandate: higher premiums, no reduction in the uninsured and loss of consumer choice.